Since
2002, when the Opalka Gallery first opened and held an all-faculty
show, the arts faculty of the Sage Colleges has grown. So
what defines this group of 16 artists? What you’ll find is
a sincere engagement with the process of art; a theme of sustainability
in design; and some grappling with identity and media politics.

A willingness to ask political questions (some would say politically
correct) emerges in two participatory artworks. GlobeAll,
by Sally Packard, department chair,sets up two
computers to give an online carbon-footprint quiz. I pondered
my guilt as I removed and inflated the toy globes, hung on
a globe outline on the wall, corresponding to my four earths’
worth of destruction. Less guilt-inducing but just as interactive
is Sean Hovendick’s Be a Man, which invites visitors
to activate clips from sitcoms of the 1970s and ’80s. Each
clip captures a stereotyped gender role (i.e., Edith from
All in the Family is the nag, repeating “Dinner’s ready!”
while the Incredible Hulk roars as the warrior). The whole
thing is convincingly done, if somewhat Gender Studies 101.
(Hint: Touch the same image to get it to stop.)

Working nicely next to this display, Harold Lohner’s Heads
Up is an almost-16-foot-tall assemblage of blue monoprints
of men’s heads in different poses, the color fading towards
the top. Lohner’s men seem to sing or shout, toss and turn
in a way that points up tensions between male toughness and
vulnerability.

The theme of identity soon gives way to one of design, architecture,
and illustration. Lynn Capirsello’s Photoshop prints speak
of design theory while Gina Porcellis, also a designer, makes
monotypes of plant life. Kent Mikalsen, an entertainment designer
and architectural consultant, has paintings depicting feet
in spiritual ascension rising over bodies of water. Matthew
McElligott’s illustrations hang near a table with some of
his books for children.

Design might be able to sell an arts education to prospective
students, but can it save the planet? Many here would have
us think so. Janus Welton’s model for the Ram Dass Library
at the Omega Institute is on display with its environmentally
sustainable mandala floor-plan (according to her artist’s
statement, “the mandala crystallizes the rhythm of creation.”)
Designer Jean Dahlgren’s poster Urban Forest Project originally
hung in Times Square.

Others portray darker visions of the earth. Melanie Hope juxtaposes
painted Northeastern landscapes with collaged newspaper headlines
about the PCB cleanup in the Hudson. In a more elemental fashion,
Timothy M. Martin’s fractured, hollowed stoneware sculptures
are also preoccupied with the environment, investigating geological
themes inspired by a residency in Ballingskelligs, Ireland.

In general the sculptures did not fit well in the gallery;
the 9-foot-tall wood Goddess of Broken Dreams and Lost
Hearts by Mikalson would be more at home in a beloved
camp lodge, while Martin’s work needed some stark black and
white photographs or earthworks behind it.

Although the remaining artists had divergent styles, it was
nice to get away from the design and environment theme. Holding
out a lone spot as a representational painter, Gary Shankman’s
oils of toys and dolls are precisely realized studies of color
and form. Also referencing traditional painting, Linda Morrell’s
photographs of personal bulletin boards become found still
lives.

Kelly Jones’s fascinating animation installation, Olive
in Gloves, projects an eerily arresting scene that will
be familiar to anyone who has seen the psychosexual cartoon
abstractions of Sue Williams or Arturo Herrera: Olive
Oyl’s ghostly, headless body, wearing gloves, spiderlike,
climbs a ladder halfway up, and then fades away.

Another compelling, surreal work is Beau Comeaux’s A Frame,
a digital photographed fabrication of a white, triangular
building at night with elements of infrastructure—wires, windows,
air conditioning units, a utility sink—on the outside.

The most visceral work, Alma, Holy Week, by Melody
Davis, is a sheet or skin of glue permeated with urine, menstrual
blood and ear wax (among other excretions). It speaks powerfully
of women’s roles as metaphysical “glue” in human relationships.
Her two personal memory boxes open to reveal shells, alpaca
wool, a bird’s nest, while a Congolese healing figure stands
watch.

Inevitably a little of this and a little of that, a faculty
show can still yield surprising discoveries. Arts departments
in higher educational settings are somewhat protected from
the market forces that elsewhere define art. Even if it at
times gets predictable and cerebral, art in a college setting
is important: It lets visitors and students alike engage with
art as an open-ended process.